Last week, dozens of American-based media and Internet companies went dark for 500 million citizens of the European Union. The culprit? The E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (known as G.D.P.R.), which forces companies to adhere to certain guidelines when it comes to the use and storage of people’s data. The law is already causing panic in Europe: in addition to the blackout, tech giants have been hit with multi-billion-dollar complaints filed by European privacy advocates, and programmatic ad buying has plummeted. But the E.U. is on the verge of an even more dire privacy crisis, which could provide a chilling preview of Silicon Valley’s fate should the U.S. choose to follow in its footsteps.

By Natasha SingerOriginally published in The New York Times on May 27, 2018

The new European data privacy legislation is so stringent that it could kill off data-driven online services and chill innovations like driverless cars, tech industry groups warn.

The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union called the legislation “overly strict.” The Developers Alliance, a trade group representing Facebook, Google, Intel and dozens of app makers, said it could cost businesses in Europe more than 550 billion euros, or about $640 billion, in annual lost revenue. And DigitalEurope, another tech trade group, said the legislation’s prohibitive approach “seriously underminesthe development of Europe’s digital economy.”

New GDPR regulations on personal data will affect even individual codersBy Jeremy Hsu

On 25 May, enforcement will begin of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): a law covering any organization anywhere in the world that handles the personal data of EU residents. Many individual developers and small-business owners will need to make sure that their applications, services, and websites comply with the GDPR, even if they do not live in EU countries.

The GDPR aims to give Europeans a clear understanding of who has their personal data and more control over its use. This means organizations must be much more disciplined about capturing and using personal data. “You need to be able to produce, delete, and audit the data easily,” says Michela Palladino, director of European policy and government relations for the nonprofit Developers Alliance.